Hollyhock Ridge

by Pamela Grandstaff

  “I care about you,” she said. “I wish it could work out.”

  He grasped the back of her shirt and pulled her close. His kiss had fire and passion in it, but all Claire could taste was the whiskey and coffee.

  The thought came to her, ‘It’s like kissing a dying man,’ but she pushed it away.

  After Laurie stopped kissing her, he kept her in a close embrace for a few moments, then kissed her temple, let go, and left, without saying another word.

  Claire went to the back door and looked west, where the sun was setting behind the mountains. She wanted to cry, but she also wanted to believe he could change, could deal with the grief that drove him to self-medicate, and that they could have something, if not exactly like what he had with his first wife, maybe a sort of approximation, a balm strong enough to soothe them both.

  When Kay returned from Morgantown, it was almost midnight. Sonny Delvecchio was sitting on her porch swing, smoking a cigarette.

  “I didn’t know you smoked,” she said.

  “Only when I’m nervous about something,” he said. “It calms me down.”

  She sat down on the top step.

  “That was a lovely gift you left on my desk,” she said.

  “I felt stupid after I did it,” he said. “I almost went back and got it before you could see it.”

  “I loved it,” she said. “I’m glad you made it for me.”

  “This thing with Diedre,” he said. “Does it change anything for you?”

  “It’s a horrible thing to have happen,” she said. “I feel so sorry for your family.”

  “That’s not what I asked you,” he said.

  “There’s this wonderful phrase that I learned from that scoundrel boss of mine, the former mayor,” she said. “When someone asked him to comment on something and he wasn’t sure how to respond, he would say, ‘I’m still processing that, and I’ll get back to you.’ ”

  “Has Matt been by?”

  “He stopped in briefly today,” she said.

  “I didn’t get the good looks in our family,” Sonny said. “That was Anthony’s gift, straight from our beautiful mother. I didn’t get her full head of hair like Pauly and Matty, either, that’s for sure. I got my height from my mother’s side of the family but I got my father’s bald head and this big honkin’ schnoz. But along with that, I also got his big heart. If my wife hadn’t left me, I would never have stopped trying to make her happy. I’m not saying you couldn’t be happy with Matty, and if you two end up together, I’ll raise a toast to you at your wedding and dance with you the appropriate number of times. I won’t make a fool of myself. I’ll be disappointed, but I’ll be all right.”

  “It’s too soon after Diedre’s death for that kind of speculation,” she said. “It’s dishonorable to her memory.”

  “I know it’s what my brother wants,” he said.

  “But what about what I want?”

  “You take your time and consider your options. As long as I’m one of them, I don’t care what anybody thinks but you.”

  “You’re so sweet,” Kay said. “I don’t know what you see in me.”

  “I see myself in you,” he said. “You got a big heart, too, the kind that gets stomped on. We saps oughta stick together.”

  “I’ll give it my deepest consideration,” Kay said. “Thank you for being so kind.”

  “You got any pie left?”

  “One thing you can always be sure of,” Kay said, “is that I’ll have something sweet in my kitchen. Come on in.”

  “You know,” he said as he followed her inside, “you got some boards on this porch could use replacing. I’ll bring my tools over on Saturday and work on that for you.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Claire rested her head on the desk and considered taking a nap. How did people do it? Working at the same desk, looking at the same computer, the same view, day after day?

  Claire thought of how often she had complained about her job when she worked for Sloan; the travel hassles, the temper tantrums, and the movie sets in far-flung places where any inconvenience was always Claire’s problem to solve. At least it was different every day and often interesting, even when it was brutal.

  There were occasions when she felt boredom, while waiting on film shoots for shots to be set up or the light to be right, or while waiting in the VIP lounge in a foreign airport, listening to Sloan berate someone over the phone. At least there was always something to do while she waited, or some bitchy assistant-something-or-other to gossip with.

  This, this forced containment, was pure torture.

  She had once again sworn off shopping, so of course all she wanted to do was look at the pretty shoes and handbags online. She had also sworn off any gossip site that might accidently tell her something new about her ex-boss’s fake engagement to her ex-boyfriend. Without constantly anticipating the needs of an insanely entitled she-devil, shopping, processing Hollywood gossip, or obsessing about some man, Claire didn’t know how to be.

  ‘Shallow,’ she thought. ‘The shallow concerns of a shallow person.’

  She wanted to become someone better than that; someone who cared about important things. It was no wonder Ed was still married to Eve; at least she could talk to him about the things in which he was interested.

  Maybe she could get better informed about world events.

  She opened an Internet browser and went to a world news site, but after fifteen minutes she shut the browser with a pounding heart. Terror, murder, torture, earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, irreparable ecological decay, political parties accusing each other of atrocious behavior, children suffering from incurable diseases, loved ones killed in heartbreaking accidents, abandoned animals, homeless elderly, and on every page: death, death, and more death. Reading the vicious reader comments on every page only made everything seem worse.

  She was reminded of what Laurie had said about life being a long slog of sorrow.

  Now she was depressed.

  As an antidote, Claire got back online and went to her favorite female-centric, aspirational-themed website where the young women who hosted it posted funny photos, celebrity gossip, and photos of beautiful rooms in expensive homes, as well as encouraging posts about keeping in shape and losing weight. Today, however, she noticed a proselytizing post on achieving the “thigh gap” situated right above a post filled with photos of and recipes for high-calorie desserts.

  ‘It’s crazy-making,’ Claire thought, ‘what we do to ourselves.’

  She recognized the urge to do something to feel better: to eat something, to shop for something, or to saturate herself with celebrity baby photos. Maybe she could slip out early and go for a long run, work off the calories she consumed the day before.

  All addictive behaviors, she realized.

  What else was there to do?

  She considered calling the nice woman in the human resources department at Eldridge College, but she had already left her several messages, and by not returning her calls, Claire suspected the woman might be avoiding her, even though it was more likely she didn’t she didn’t have anything new to tell her.

  Claire called Professor Richmond instead. She rolled her eyes at his voicemail message.

  What a ham.

  “Hell is empty and all the devils are here,” he intoned, as if from a stage in London’s West End. “Record a message, if you must.”

  “Hi, Professor Richmond,” Claire said. “This is Claire Fitzpatrick; I was just wondering if you had heard anything about the position, and if we’re still on for Scrabble tonight. Give me a call when you have time.”

  Claire ended the call and looked around. She realized she was slumped in her rolling office chair, so she sat up straight. She realized she was frowning, so she smoothed her facial features into what she thought was a cheerful, pleasant expression.

  “Who are you making faces at?” Melissa said from the doorway.

  “I have resting bitch face,” Claire said. “So I’m working on it
.”

  “That’s the silliest thing I ever heard,” Melissa said.

  “I’m so bored,” Claire said. “How do people stand this?”

  “I know it,” Melissa said. “I took today off but I woke up at the regular time, cleaned the whole trailer, and now I’m antsy.”

  “I’m stuck here until they deliver Sean’s copier printer thingy,” Claire said. “Let’s take the table out front and get some ice coffees from the bookstore.”

  Once seated outside with their beverages, they got caught up on family gossip.

  “I guess Bonny’s bossing everyone around something terrible down at the beach,” Melissa said.

  “Better them than you,” Claire said. “Sean said he was basically serving as chauffeur and man servant to all the old people.”

  “If you get the job at the college, do you think Sean would give me the secretary job?”

  “I don’t know what Sean’s going to do,” Claire said. “Have you tried anywhere else?”

  “I have, but I got a feeling that prison record’s all they see when they look at my resume.”

  “I’m sorry,” Claire said. “I know you’re a good person and you didn’t deserve to go to prison; I wish everyone else knew that, too.”

  Melissa shrugged.

  “I kidnapped a baby out of a meth house,” she said. “I pretended to be his mama and let everyone think the real me died when the place blew up. I know I done wrong, but I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”

  “Tommy has you to thank that he’s alive and well,” Claire said. “Everyone seems to love that kid.”

  “I wish he was home,” Melissa said. “I like knowing where he is, even if he ain’t with me.”

  “Kay heard from them,” Claire said. “They’re having a great time.”

  “She done told me,” Melissa said. “Kay’s a good egg.”

  “I guess you heard about Diedre Delvecchio dying.”

  “That’s all anybody’s talking about,” Melissa said.

  “They never found her car; don’t you think that’s odd?”

  Melissa shrugged.

  “I guess that don’t hardly matter since she’s dead.”

  “After they deliver the copier thingy, I’m going to go look for her car,” Claire said. “Do you want to go with me?”

  “Why?” Melissa said. “The police should do that.”

  “Because I don’t have anything else to do,” Claire said. “Because sitting in this office every day all day is driving me mad.”

  “I’d give anything to have a job like this,” Melissa said with a wistful look on her face. “Somebody with a job like this is respectful-like. You get to wear nice clothes and don’t get flour all over you. No hot kitchen, no hot grease. Nobody looks down on you if have a job like this.”

  Claire knew that wasn’t true, but she didn’t say it. No matter what you did, or how experienced or well-educated you were, there was always somebody who would enjoy looking down on you.

  She wanted to help Melissa; how could she do that?

  “You know,” Claire said. “If you work on your grammar, it will help you get a better job.”

  “You sayin’ I sound stupid?” Melissa said, with a raised eyebrow. “I ain’t as dumb as I look.”

  “I know you’re not dumb,” Claire said. “You just need to sound as smart as you are. Would you like that?”

  “I dunno,” Melissa said. “I don’t wanna sound like no big fake.”

  “Actresses have to learn to speak in different ways so they can get better parts,” Claire said. “That’s part of the job; how would this be any different? You’d be playing the part of a smart secretary to get a job as a smart secretary.”

  “How would I even go about doing something like that?” she asked.

  “There’s bound to be an online class,” Claire said. “We can enroll you, and then you can go online in the evenings and do the lessons. It’ll be super easy. Then you practice what you learn every day. Bad grammar’s just a habit; it can be broken if you want to do it.”

  “I think I might be Tennessee to the bone,” Melissa said. “I might be able to get the words right but I’ll still sound like Chattanooga’s in my veins.”

  “The grammar is more important than the accent,” Claire said. “We still want you to sound like Melissa, but Melissa the professional-sounding secretary.”

  “If you think it will help,” Melissa said. “I’m willing to try anything.”

  Claire helped Melissa enroll in an online grammar class, and while they were looking over the lesson plans, a man delivered the printer. He set it up and then showed them how to make copies, scan documents to save as PDFs on the computer, and to fax documents. When he left, they printed out Melissa’s lessons from the online class, and then scanned and emailed them to each other.

  “If you already know how to run all the office machines and improve your grammar,” Claire said, “you’ll be ahead of the game.”

  “I can keyboard 100 words per minute,” Melissa said, “but I don’t spell too good.”

  “Well,” Claire said.

  “What?”

  “Never mind,” Claire said. “That’s what spell check is for.”

  Claire put up a “be back in an hour” sign on the door and locked the office behind her.

  “Pip’s supposed to be doing finishing work on Sean’s office,” Claire said, “but since he didn’t show up this morning I don’t imagine he’ll show up now.”

  Since Melissa’s car was parked out front, they took it to the storage unit complex where Diedre’s body had been found.

  “I do need to rent a storage unit for all the stuff that will be shipped from California,” Claire said. “That will get us in the gates, and then we can nose around.”

  Melissa sat on the hood of the car and texted while Claire went inside the office. She asked if they had something on the back side of the lot and the woman didn’t seem to think that was odd.

  “I got one needs cleaned out,” she said, consulting her chart. “It’ll be ready in about a week.”

  “Is that the one they found the body in?”

  “I don’t know anything about that and I’m not supposed to talk about it.”

  “I don’t mind taking that one,” Claire said. “Can I at least drive back there and look at the outside of it?”

  The woman showed her on the map where it was, but Claire already knew.

  “If you don’t tell anybody I gave it to you, I’ll give you the key,” the woman said. “Just be sure and bring it back here before you leave.”

  “That’s okay,” Claire said, and her distaste must have shown on her face.

  “There’s no blood or anything,” the woman said. “We got a company that cleans that stuff up for us.”

  “This has happened more than once?” Claire asked.

  “People do crazy things in those units,” the woman said. “We had one guy living in his for a couple of months before we figured it out. When you’re homeless, it’s cheaper than an apartment.”

  Claire accepted the key and promised to bring it right back.

  She and Melissa drove around to the back of the property and parked next to the chain link fence across from Diedre’s unit.

  “I’ll pass,” Melissa said, when Claire told her she had the key.

  Claire braced herself for a bad smell, but it smelled like someone’s musty basement full of junk, plus a bleach smell from the big clean spot on the floor. Claire looked around the small section of floor space that was clean, but she didn’t know what she was looking for.

  ‘What am I even doing here?’ she asked herself. ‘This is silly.’

  A truck drove past slowly and two shady-looking characters gave Claire up-and-down looks and sly smiles. They drove on down to the unit at the end, and Claire rolled the door down and locked it. She definitely didn’t want her stuff to be kept back here with those guys nearby.

  Melissa was standing outside of the car, leaning back agai
nst it, texting again. As Claire walked up to her, she could hear the door to the unit at the end roll up. She watched the men go in and immediately roll the door down behind them.

  “I think I got all wound up for nothing,” she said to Melissa. “Let’s go home.”

  Melissa stopped texting and lifted her head, but she wasn’t looking at Claire.

  “Do you smell that?” she asked.

  Claire sniffed the air, and there was something, a chemical smell, acrid but faint.

  “I guess, why?”

  “I know that smell,” Melissa said.

  Melissa hurriedly walked over to Diedre’s storage unit, flattened her back against it, and then edged her way down closer to the end unit. Claire watched in amazement as Melissa reached the garage door of the end unit, sniffed the crack between it and the cement block wall, and then ran all the way back to the car.

  “We gotta get outta here,” she said as she opened the driver’s side door. “Get in, get in, get in!”

  Claire scurried around the side of the car and got in right as Melissa started backing up. She was still closing the door as the car moved.

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  Melissa zoomed up the driveway and screeched to a halt in front of the office.

  “Tell ‘er you changed your mind,” Melissa said. “You don’t want it. Hurry!”

  Claire went inside, told the woman she wasn’t sure yet, but would get back to her, and gave her the key. The woman shrugged, irritated but obviously disinterested.

  When Claire got back in the car, Melissa was sunk down low in the seat, had sunglasses on and had stuffed her hair up in one of Patrick’s ball caps. She pulled out of the parking lot so fast the tires screeched.

  Claire was still trying to put on her seatbelt.

  “What in the hell just happened?”

  Melissa’s face was pale and she was driving very fast.

  “Slow down,” Claire said. “The county keeps a car on this road and you don’t want to get pulled over while you’re on parole.”

  Melissa slowed down to the speed limit.

  “You think that woman could identify me in a line up?”